Stream It Or Skip It: ‘All Rise’ On CBS, Where An Idealistic Prosecutor Becomes An Idealistic Judge

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All Rise

Do you know how long lawyer an courtroom dramas have been on our televisions? Seventy years, or just about as long as network TV has existed. At this point, it doesn’t feel like the networks can present anything new in this regard. But dagnabit, the networks keep trying. Allow me to submit into evidence the series All Rise, where an idealistic deputy district attorney becomes an idealistic district judge who has to fight the system to make a difference. But does it really make any kind of difference?

Opening Shot: At the Los Angeles County courthouse, we see people being processed on their way to their arraignments. A bailiff says “Thank you for committing your crimes in Los Angeles County,” then goes through a speech about how he doesn’t care what happened before they got there, and not even the most face-tattooed thug impresses him.

The Gist: Lola Carmichael (Simone Missick) is one of the best deputy district attorneys in L.A. County; as she comes into work two weeks before she starts as a district judge, she absentmindedly puts her phone on her car’s roof and some kid steals it. Her close friend and colleague Mark Callan (Wilson Bethel) backs his car into the kid to slow him down, but the idealistic prosecutor lets the kid go.

She then walks into court where Mark is doing arraignments and notices that one of the defendants has no pants on. As she interrupts the proceedings to deride the bailiffs who aren’t taking care of these defendants, one of them goes off on the dirty criminals that get better defenses than law-abiding citizens, and as he pulls out his gun, he gets shot by fellow bailiff Luke Watkins (J. Alex Brinson) — who we find out later is studying to be a lawyer.

Two weeks later, Lola starts her first day as a district judge. After a quippy but uncomfortable elevator encounter with Mark where he advises her to be as silent and inscrutable as the Sphinx, her boss Lisa Benner (Marg Helgenberger) says, “Let’s introduce you to your new friends!”. This is after she breaks the news that her assistant is going to be Sherrie Kansky (Ruthie Ann Miles), who is efficient as hell but filed a complaint against Lola when she was a DA; she tells Lola that the JA’s have a nickname for her: “Lola Coaster.”

One of the first cases that appears before her on her first day is the same woman who had no pants two weeks before. She was supposedly caught by top detective breaking into a house, and her aggressive public defender Emily Lopez (Jessica Camacho), has her pleading to it, but Lola wants a second look. And Luke, who’s a bailiff in Lola’s courtroom, sees inconsistencies in the photo evidence. As much as Benner wants Lola to not go against the LAPD on this case, Lola sticks to her guns.

In another case, Mark has to deal with the defendant defending himself, including calling Mark on the stand and asking him about his father’s mafia ties. Mark is exasperated, and when he goes to Lola for advice, she tells him that the court needs to give self-lawyering defendants leeway, even if he is off-kilter. It doesn’t help that Mark gave the judge, Jonas Laski (Paul McCrane), aka “the Punisher,” a big hit while playing hockey the week before.

Photo: Bill Inoshita/CBS

Our Take:All Rise is a classic CBS procedural, with maybe a bit of a bent away from taking itself too seriously. Created by Greg Spottiswood (Remedy), there isn’t anything here we haven’t seen before, in all it’s eye-rolling, throw-up-your-hands ridiculousness. Within the first five minutes there’s a courtroom shootout, and most of what we see has been done on shows like Boston Legal with more creativity and more wit.

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That’s not to say we don’t find Missick, probably best known for starring in Marvel’s Luke Cage, extremely appealing. Given better material, we can see that she has both the comic timing and the dramatic chops to handle this show’s mad swings between quippy, fast-moving dialogue and saccharine earnestness. She also can pratfall like nobody’s business, as we see when she botches her “big moment” on her first day as a judge.

We know that Lola wants to make a difference, dammit, and only Missick’s force-of-nature presence will be able to pull this off without making audiences lunge for the “delete” button on their DVR remotes. It helps that she has Helgenberger by her side, a 20-year veteran of CBS procedurals. She’s an expert at taking characters that seem to have no depth and making them into something. And in her few scenes as Benner, who is eager to guide and mentor Lola and let her know that her idealism isn’t always good on this side of the bench, Helgenberger does just that.

The dialogue isn’t as funny as its speed wants us to think it is, and it feels that every side character except for Benner and Kansky (see above) come out of the generic bin of courtroom drama characters — we’re not even sure what court reporter Sara Pratt (Lindsay Mendez) is all about besides being someone with a gambling problem. But at least their private lives are being examined in addition to what goes on in the courthouse. Perhaps as things settle down and Spottiswood and his staff find the right pace, those stories will come to the fore and make those characters less generic. But we’re not holding out much hope.

Sex and Skin: It’s all business in the first episode.

Parting Shot: Lola drives Mark to a seedy club, where he proceeds to punch out his father.

Sleeper Star: Ruthie Ann Miles as Sherrie Kansky seems to be the only character aside from Lola who has any sort of personality. We like how ruthlessly efficient she is, how she’s not impressed by the judges she works for, and how she signals Lola when she’s treading on thin judiciary ice.

Most Pilot-y Line: There are plenty, but this one is as leaden as they come: “I need to make a difference, but I can’t tell if this is the battle or this is the war,” Lola says to Mark as she tries to confide in him about her battle with the LAPD.

Our Call: SKIP IT. All Rise could settle down and concentrate on the two people who make the show work — Missick and Helgenberger — but it is just as likely to become a generic courtroom drama that tries too hard to be funny.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.